"This transaction represents a major commitment to
strengthen and expand critical infrastructure for our nation's future,"
said Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO. "It will improve
network quality, and it will bring advanced LTE capabilities to more than 294
million people.

"This transaction delivers significant customer, shareowner
and public benefits that are available at this level only from the combination
of these two companies with complementary network technologies, spectrum
positions and operations. We are confident in our ability to execute a seamless
integration, and with additional spectrum and network capabilities, we can
better meet our customers’ current demands, build for the future and help
achieve the President’s goals for a high-speed, wirelessly connected America.”

The deal would of course have to be approved by U.S.
regulating bodies, but if all goes well, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom hope to
have the transition finalized within the next year.

AT&T is also looking to boost its nascent LTE efforts with
this transaction, and will bring the technology to 95 percent of the U.S.
population. AT&T will also spend an additional $8 billion over the next
five years to boost its infrastructure investment within the U.S.

We can only hope that the T-Mobile acquisition, broadened
LTE deployments, and increased spending on infrastructure will improve
AT&Ts famously "fragile" wireless network.

AT&T made headlines last week – and drew the wrath of
many – when it announced that it would
start cracking down on users that were using “illegal” jailbreak apps to
tether data with their smartphones.

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quote: As a Canadian I offer a sympathetic pat on the back, After years of living with the Bell-us du-opoly, I can sympathize with your growing plight.

It still has to get FCC/FTC approval, so it's by no means a done deal.

Hmm, if they approve it, can we start calling it AT&T&T?

quote: At least you don't pay minimum $50 a month for 200 minutes airtime and 500mb data, while having to pay 15 bucks a month extra on top of that for call display and voice mail, as we do here.

I spent a couple years in Canada, and your cell phone prices are ridiculous. It actually turned out to be cheaper for me to add Canada roaming to my U.S. plan and pay $0.20/min for calls while in Canada, than for me to get a Canadian cell phone.

You know what the absolute saddest thing is? The best deal you can get on a prepaid cell in Canada is from, drumroll...

7-11...

Yes 7-11 the convenience store.

They have a division called speak out wireless which is really using rogers network.

They are the only prepaid provider in Canada I am aware of that allows your minutes to carry for a whole year. And if you buy more in that time your previous minutes get refreshed, so you get to keep them. All the other providers force you to buy minutes every month, as they expire in 30 days and do not carry over if you buy more.

I set my mother up with one of these for an emergency phone. I had my old sony ericsson rogers phone that is actually a great simple little phone, so I payed $5 to unlock it on ebay, bought a 7-11 prepaid and dropped the sim from the garbage 7-11 phone in it. Now it costs $25 a year for her to have an emergency phone and she gets to keep unused minutes. Previously she was being soaked $10 a month for a bell-us prepaid she used once in a blue moon.

That all being said it is still in no way a good deal. It's like 25 cents a minute, so it's pretty much only good for uses like this an emergency phone. Or drug dealers of course.

The really sad part is how they rape and pillage on things like call display and voice mail.

I work for a company that provides VoIP, and call display / voice-mail cost the company literally nothing. It's so trivial it is of course thrown in free.

When you call Bell-us or Rogers to cancel your service they transfer you over to the customer retention department where they attempt to lure you into staying. The first thing they try to do every time is sacrifice the call display and voice mail (which costs them nothing) to make you think you are getting a deal and stay on their service.

They also call constantly trying to lure customers from carrier to carrier with tricks like this to make you think you are getting a deal. I get calls on my Telus phone all the time from Bell reps, (most often at extremely annoying times) trying this tactic.

I use a phone provided by work so it doesn't matter as much to me, but we get absolutely raped by the du-opoly up here for sure.